Tag: no god

We’ve all heard of the stereotype of the “angry atheist,” and I’m really tired of it and all it implies. If you really want to know why this atheist is sometimes angry, I’ll tell you, but you aren’t going to like it. I’m tired of being told that I am angry at a god I don’t believe in. I’m not, but lately I have been angry at some of those who believe in this god.

In general, I am a happy and pretty serene person. I am easy to get along with, I don’t get mad very easily, and I can’t think of any wrong done to me that I don’t easily forgive very quickly. However, I am angry at religion, at least organized religion. I don’t really have a problem with vague beliefs of some abstract spirit world where are there are no holy documents dictating how everyone else is supposed to live, regardless of whether or not they also believe it.

The kind of religion that makes me angry is the kind that is preventing progress, inhibiting intellectual reasoning, brainwashing children and cultures, interfering with the rights of others, and destroying our world. That’s right, destroying it. And I’m not just talking about the terrorism of some Islamic groups, or the overt oppression of homosexuals and women, but, at least in the United States, I blame fundamentalist Christianity for the dumbing down of the world when it comes to science, the environment and climate change, over-population, and for popularizing the belief in the superiority of mankind and his “dominion” over animal life and nature, as well as attempting to morally justify the worship of capitalism and making it acceptable to vilify and oppress the poor. Religion is leading to a mass extinction on our planet.

Any species that takes more than it needs from its environment eventually becomes extinct. The only way out of this that I can conceive is education. Education in science, history, literature, social studies, math, in everything, including de-bunking religious superstition. As long as people are conditioned to check their brains at the door and believe a book written by bigoted men thousands of years ago, men who had no understanding of science and every reason to perpetuate thought which put them in control. This book causes good people to discriminate against other good people, this book causes women to accept or even welcome their own subjugation, and this book causes intelligent people to dismiss intellectual thought in lieu of “faith,” which leads to denying scientific fact and embracing fantasy notions of escaping this planet for an imaginary perfect place where none of the people they find offensive will be allowed to go.

And when you believe there will be a new earth, why take care of the old one? Why not have “19 kids and counting” if a god will take care of all of them or rapture them up and take them to heaven? We don’t need to worry about the exponentially growing population and the fact that we do not have enough resources to support them or enough jobs available for them as they become adults. And if animals do not have souls, and men do, obviously, men can do whatever they want to them. And prejudice and discrimination against those who do not agree that your god makes the rules is suddenly justified because you are just “trying to save them” and are worried about their eternal souls.

One of the most disturbing things about American Christianity is the apparent worship of capitalism and the disdain for the poor. While, in the past, Christians prided themselves on caring for the poor, this new generation of Christianity seems to prefer quoting aphorisms about God helping “those who help themselves,” “no working-no eating,” and “teach a man to fish,” etc., effectively blaming the poor as being lazy without looking at factors such as opportunity and oppression, instead, promoting corporate greed as God’s blessings for the entrepreneurial spirit. They seem to think that if they please God enough, enforcing his edicts on the world, they, too, will be blessed with riches.

But if you really want to know why I am angry, you first have to understand my perception of religion. While Christians may think I am lost, I think, as a former Christian, that I have awakened and narrowly escaped a cult. I believe that Christians are nice people, more often than not, who have been deceived and brainwashed into joining a damaging and intellectually debilitating cult. This cult lures people in by quoting the nice parts of the bible, and there are a few, very few. These people are drawn in by the idea of an all-powerful and benevolent being who personally created them and loves them. They aren’t immediately informed about this god’s past immoral and psychotic displays of rage on humanity. And when they do run into these passages, eventually, they are explained away with such illogical nonsense as “We can’t begin to understand God,” or “Because God is perfectly just, He has to destroy sin,” (even the innocent children, apparently, and despite the notion that He created it), or my personal anti-favorite, “You just have to have faith.” Why? Why would anyone think it a good thing to believe something for absolutely no good reason, contrary to the observable evidence, and with no supporting evidence of its own? Especially, blissfully ignoring the fact that this god seems strikingly similar to a very flawed, over-emotional, prideful, vindictive, and sexist early Middle Eastern man. This is exactly what I mean. This cult ensures its survival by making sure its members believe that looking too closely at its logic is a bad thing and blind faith is admirable.

I’m sure at this point, some people are thinking that I sound like I am mad at God. I’m not. I don’t believe he exists, but if the god of the bible were real, I certainly would not find him worthy to be worshipped or obeyed, not to mention that he seems to be a trickster engaged in the longest hide and seek game of all time. However, I am mad that this mythology is continuing to block progress and affects millions of people who do not share these beliefs. I am angry that persistent sexism exists because of religion. I am angry that discrimination of all kinds of people exists because of religion, that wars are started over religion, that disdain for the poor exists because of religion, that scientists are scoffed at because of religion, that we are killing ourselves, plant life, and animal life because of religion. I don’t mean to single out only Christianity for the blame; there are other factors, but, in my opinion, it is this dominant religion causing the most harm here in the United States. I am angry that in America, there are still some laws on the books that prevent an atheist from holding political office, which is completely unconstitutional. Personally, I would rather see a person who depends on reason in charge of public policy than someone who wants to determine what is right and wrong from an ancient book that should have long ago been relegated to the status of mythology, a category to which it most certainly belongs. However, we all know that even if there were no “religious test” for public office, the “moral majority” of America would never elect even the most ethical and upstanding atheist as president. An atheist would be forced to pretend to have the popular religion in order to have a chance for a political career in the United States.

Yet, Christians cry religious persecution all the time—whenever they are prevented from forcing their religious dogma on others. It is not enough anymore to spread the gospel, they must enforce their imaginary god’s laws on rational people who think they are delusional. I apologize if this is too blunt, and I want to make sure everyone understands that I do not think Christians are stupid. They aren’t. They are brainwashed, usually from birth, indoctrinated into a culture of Christianity and held there by fear of hell, fear of losing community and family, and being ostracized as godless heathens. When Christians do allow themselves to doubt and question, they are quickly reined in and corrected. And even when they no longer believe, they fear admitting it. I was once among them, and I feel for them, but I refuse to stand by silently while they destroy the world I, too, must live in. So, yeah, I am angry, and I do feel the need to say what I think is really going on, but I am not mad at an invisible dictator in the sky whom I do not believe exists.

I am not an angry person. I am a person who gets angry, especially when it really matters. I am a moral person, and I want to see us solve problems and move forward in a way that best protects our future. So you see, in this way, we aren’t really that different. We both think the other is ruining the world, we both think the other is deluded. However, I don’t think you are going to hell. I think you can be woken up. I think you can snap out of it and realize the wool has been pulled over your eyes. I’m sure you think I could come back to Christianity, but I won’t because I never want to believe something for no reason again. I want to see a new age of reason emerge, and the United States return to its former position as one of the world’s freethinking leaders of democracy and scientific thought, rather than being known as the largest free country still holding on to magical thinking and holding back progress. Reason, in the end, is the only savior out there, and I’m justifiably angry because we are encouraging ignorance and fantasies over rationality at the cost of our future.—Christina Knowles

Originally published in 2015

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I know that right now is the wrong time to say this. I know there never is a right time according to the politically correct mandate we all live under today, but I’m sick of being politically correct. I’m sick of worrying if someone is going to be offended. I’m probably going to get hate mail for this, but I can’t be silent on this any longer.

The heinous infection that is Islam is spreading across the world. And don’t bother telling me that it is a religion of peace. If you are Muslim, and you think your religion is one of peace, then you are doing it wrong. You don’t even believe your own holy book.

But I won’t stop there. It wouldn’t be fair. Judaism is not a religion of peace. Christianity is not a religion of peace. These three main religions have their roots in violence, their gods are violent, and their people are violent if they literally follow the rules of their holy books.

The fact is, fortunately, most of these believers don’t follow their religion, don’t listen to their holy words, don’t accept the hatefulness of their gods. Why not go one step further and dismiss the whole religion? If you need to reinterpret your holy book to raise the standard of your religion to the higher morals you already have, then dump the whole thing. You are more moral than your god, unless you are a terrorist, in which case, you are doing your religion correctly.

Many people fall back on the ideology that the Old Testament or the Quran are to be taken figuratively, or that the New Testament overrides the old. But this is just an excuse. Jesus condones the horrific acts of God all through the New Testament, and if you have to twist the words of the Bible or Quran to make them more palatable, then it’s not a book worth following, or even reading, for that matter. By the way, these books were supposedly taken literally by the people living in the time they were written, so apparently, they were written to be literal.

And being against the acceptance and practice of ridiculous belief systems is NOT racism. It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with faith. I find it hard to fathom that in this day and age, we would praise the ability of blindly accepting that which makes absolutely no sense, is contradicted both by science and its own words, and is supported by zero evidence, as a trait worth aspiring to. It’s time for religion to come under the same scrutiny and criticism allowed in every other claim of knowledge. It is not exempt because you may be offended.

It’s true, the end of religion won’t be the end of all violence, but it would be a great start. It’s time to grow up and realize that Santa is not coming. Your parents, as well-meaning as they were, lied to you. Only when we embrace facts and science can we end religious terrorism. Every prayer you send up for the victims of terrorists validates the idea of fantasy creatures who command the eradication of those who do not believe and encourages this notion that faith is a good thing. It is not. It most definitely is not.—Christina Knowles

Originally published in 2015

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We, who are openly atheist, often encourage others to come out publically as atheists because when more people admit to unbelief, the more we are accepted, the less discrimination we experience, and the more rationality can be spread around, in general. But, it’s not an easy thing to do. A gay friend once told me that it was harder telling her parents she no longer believed than it was telling them she was gay. Yet, most people don’t realize what it is really like to come out as an atheist in religion-obsessed America.

Do you want to know what it feels like to be an atheist in America?

It feels like realizing everything you thought was true is wrong.

It feels like being off-kilter and having to reevaluate everything.

It feels like losing everyone you thought you knew and trusted.

It feels like losing all your friends and starting over.

It feels like being stabbed in the back by the sister you nursed day and night through her cancer.

It feels like being cheated out of everything rightfully yours by the only sister you have left.

It feels like being looked on with suspicion by your own family.

It feels like being rejected by your own son and not getting to see your grandchildren.

It feels like being seen as a moral degenerate by people who don’t have a moral bone in their bodies.

It feels like being WAY more moral than most of the Christians you know.

It feels like being a second-class citizen.

It feels like being discriminated against at work.

It feels like being feared by your students’ parents.

It feels like being forced into the “angry atheist” role when all you ever wanted was to just get along.

It feels like your boss pretending to care about your work environment, but really she just doesn’t want to be sued.

It feels like spending tens of thousands of dollars on your step-daughter’s medical bills and having her unfriend you on Facebook.